If Chris Christie is such a truth-teller, why are his supporters so eager to discount his word?

The Republican governor of New Jersey has elevated saying “no” to an art form in the face of repeated pleas that he run for president. Politico has a video clip compiling 18 times Christie has said no, no way, I’m not ready, I don’t want to, apparently I actually have to commit suicide to prove I’m not running.

I heard him say “no” several times in person in July, when he was in Iowa for Gov. Terry Branstad’s education summit. He sounded like he really meant it, not like a politician who was trying to leave himself an opening.

In Tuesday night’s speech at the Reagan Presidential Library, Christie pointed to the Politico video as his answer to the inevitable question about whether he’ll run. That generated media speculation that he’s still thinking of running, because he didn’t directly say “no.”

Folks, if you really love Chris Christie, it’s time to let him go. There’s a point at which adoring persistence turns into creepy stalking. Christie might want to look into a restraining order.

Christie has been politely saying he’s flattered by the attention, but it’s actually getting kind of insulting. Apparently, the governor’s fans think he’s just like a typical politician who will say something clearly, emphatically and from the heart, and then turn around and do exactly the opposite. Why would they want someone like that in the Oval Office?

Now, it doesn’t help matters when Christie shamelessly flirts by giving speeches like the one Tuesday at the Reagan Library, focused on national issues and guaranteed to make Republicans swoon. But he’s a politician, after all. He can no more shun the TV cameras than a moth can ignore the porch light.

Maybe, as media reports suggest, Christie did tell some of his big donors that he’d think about it one more time. Maybe he thinks he owes them that much. But what kind of president would Christie be if big donors could persuade him to do something he really doesn’t want to do? If they can pressure him into acting against his own judgment of what’s good for himself and his family, they can talk him into doing things he doesn’t feel would be good for the country.

Not that he’d make it that far. If he has to be wheedled and cajoled into a race despite serious misgivings, it’s hard to imagine he’d be committed enough to go the distance. He’s said he doesn’t relish the thought of waking up at 4 a.m. in a Des Moines hotel room when it’s 15 below zero. Maybe that just proves he’s sane. He knows it takes more than black coffee to endure the afflictions and indignities of a presidential campaign. Why not believe him when he says he doesn’t have the burning ambition it takes to put himself through all that?

Christie would have just as many landmines in his path to the nomination as all of the other GOP presidential candidates have been blundering through.

Anita Perry, wife of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, compared the barbs her husband has taken from fellow Republicans to high-school jealousy. It’s like when a cute blonde moves to town and immediately starts dating the high-school quarterback, she said Wednesday at a breakfast club in Urbandale. Christie would get the same treatment.

“Even though I know he would be kind of a superstar for the time being, you never know,” said Steve Scheffler, a Republican National Committee member from Iowa. “People are still going to vet these candidates. He might be the flavor of the month, flavor of the week, but at the end that might not mean a thing.”

Conservatives who are looking for purity wouldn’t care for his past support of the federal assault weapon ban. Anti-establishment tea partiers would be suspicious of his ties to Wall Street. His inexperience as a national candidate means he’d make some of the same mistakes as his rivals, and probably invent some new ones.

Christie may run in the future. If he does, he’ll have to deal with any negatives in his record. But at least he wouldn’t start his campaign by proving himself a very smooth and convincing liar.